Judge to decide if Kenwood Drive murder trial will be postponed

Circuit Judge John Atkins will soon decide if the murder trial of Sergio Del Angel, who is accused of shooting Kristofer Armstrong to death in 2017, will be delayed.

The request comes from Del Angel’s attorney, David Rye, who informed the Christian Circuit Courtroom Thursday afternoon that he just recently received numerous test results from the state lab and now needs time to find experts to examine it.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Lynn Pryor had no objection to a short postponement in trial, saying she has also had difficulties in locating an out-of-state witness to testify at trial, which is currently set to start on November 19.

Judge Atkins questioned Rye on why he hadn’t had experts ready to go if he knew lab results would soon be in, and Rye answered it was because he wasn’t sure what information the reports would contain.

Atkins declined to rule on postponing the trial just yet, saying he would take it under advisement and telling Rye to contact the state crime lab and speak with an expert there.

He set a new pretrial hearing for November 15 at 12 p.m. when he will make a ruling on whether to delay the trial or not, based on what information Rye and Pryor bring him that day.

Del Angel is charged with first-degree murder. He allegedly approached Armstrong, who was sitting his porch on Kenwood Drive in May 2017, and shot him in the chest. Del Angel was apprehended in Oklahoma two days later.